Batman The Animated Series:

Anyone else remember this show? I remember it was on either right before or right after Animaniacs on the good old Kids' WB!. I didn't see much of it but from what I could gather it was a pretty cool show and now that all the eps are online I'm looking for requests.

Great series, and it pretty much paved the way for a lot of other great cartoons.

My personal favorite villain was Mr. Freeze.

It had its ups and downs. I liked the original version, but the Art Shift after they changed it to New Adventures or whatever was annoying.

One episode I always remember is "Tyger, Tyger". That was good shit.

I really liked the Baby Doll and Mad Hatter episodes. I really never got to watch enough of it though because as a kid I didn't like it as much as I do now. Is it really online anywhere? Youtube doesn't have much.

My personal favorite of animated Batman. And done by Bruce Timm none of the less! I should pop in the DV Ds of these episodes again sometime.

Still the best animated version of Batman ever done, despite good efforts like The Brave and the Bold and Under the Red Hood.

Top Ten favorite episodes, in no particular order:

I am the Night.

Baby-Doll.

The Laughing Fish.

Almost Got 'Im.

Legends of the Dark Knight.

Mad Love.

Showdown.

On Leather Wings.

Heart of Ice.

Day of Judgement.

Loved it. Currently have a copy.

I used to have two of the box sets. Actually, I wouldn't mind having the entire series (or at least all the episodes before the Art Shift), though the last time I saw the DV Ds I was like "this show really isn't as good as I remember."

Let's see, favorite episodes:

The Underdwellers.

The one where the fat guy runs a human slave operation (I forget its name)

Two-Face

Feat of Clay

the second Clock King episode where he has those devices that can speed up or slow down time. That was always such a cool premise.

And I think I really liked City of Steel too (but I never had the box set that featured that episode, so it really has been awhile)

You could just watch it online, they've got it up on a video hosting site.

Hm, I take that back, they don't have all the eps up.

edited 6th Mar '11 9:19:26 AM by Deboss

Anyone else remember this show?

........

Anyway, I love it, though I hate it's elitist fanbase, who put down any other animated adaptation (The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, etc.) for not being as good.

edited 6th Mar '11 10:02:05 AM by ManwiththePlan

Remember it?

Bitches, I'm watching it.

edited 6th Mar '11 10:02:10 AM by RichReeders

Can't help but noting they STILL just ARE NOT that good. Doesn't mean they are worthless, but even objectively, they aren't as well balanced and developed as BTAS was.

Same here, except I've encountered a variation that takes it to "any cartoon that's not the DCAU isn't worth watching" levels.

Which I've never agreed with. The DCAU had nice animation but the stories just weren't there and the characters were little more than two-dimensional archetypes most of the time. Frankly, I'd like to see less of the stupidity that eventually took over comics taking over my cartoons, but B:TAS kind of paved the road for that (though hopefully some modern efforts will block the dam somewhat)

I actually have the entire first series on DVD, sans New Adventures and its art shift. Still haven't watched all the episodes though.

Elaborate, because frankly I have a radically different opinion. No way the main DCAU's plotlines are 'dumber' or more loaded with stereotypes and cliches than those of Teen Titans, Legion Of Superheroes or most of The Batman.

edited 6th Mar '11 11:35:15 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

Superheroes just aren't my genre. You'll notice the episodes I like tend either to have an interesting hypothetical premise, or else some really hard-hitting human element. I could care less about Braniac becoming Lex Luthor's imaginary friend or shit like that.

That being said, "Mad as a Hatter" was a good episode too. Hated his return appearances though.

edited 6th Mar '11 1:21:49 PM by MoeDantes

The first series had a lot of Off-Model moments. Yes, I know, stone the heretic, he said "Jehova", but some of them really show their age - "On Leather Wings" and "Mad as a Hatter" spring to mind.

I've always had a soft spot for "His Silicon Soul" just because of a deconstruction of the Evil Twin aspect, it's possible to immitate the hero too well. Kevin Conroy's performance was phenominal (apparently voicing both Batman's simultaneously), especially when the robot Batman starts to lose it thinking that he killed a man. They visit a similar idea in the Justice League episode "Legends" when the supposedly imaginary Justice Guild saved the day.

^^^ BTAS, for all that it was amazing, had a recurring problem where some villains eventually got less and less effective as they were in their origin. Mr. Freeze, Mad Hatter (though he had Perchance to Dream, which was a great episode as well), Killer Croc, and Baby Doll all ran into this... even Ra's to an extent.

My top ten favorite episodes... hmm... in no particular order.

• Heart Of Ice
• Feat Of Clay
• Harley's Holiday
• Second Chance
• The Laughing Fish
• Joker's Millions
• Holiday Knights
• The Clock King
• Joker's Favor
• Vendetta

To be fair, Freeze only suffered real Villain Decay in Cold Comfort. Deep Freeze was great, Sub Zero was a fitting conclusion to his arc, and his Batman Beyond appearance was well handled as well.

It helps they used him sparingly.

And I'm of the rare opinion Love is a Croc doesn't rank too below Baby-Doll.

edited 7th Mar '11 5:13:03 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

My main problem is that, Mad Hatter's first appearance is as a somewhat sympathetic loser who simply made a bad choice. He somehow goes from this to being Generic Criminal Archfiend C.

That's kind of why I don't like Batman's villains in general though: They may be introduced with some unique fixation or premise, but come time they're due for a reappearance then you might as well be dealing with a member of Cobra. The show would've been better if they had kept up the unique villain arcs across the series, instead of just assuming everyone becomes a career criminal.

edited 7th Mar '11 10:39:53 AM by MoeDantes

That has some easy explanations:

1) Being locked up together at Arkham tends to blurry the lines separating their personal crusades. After a while, their influence kinda tends to rub on each other, especially after team-ups. This is rather evident in Trial.

2) From a meta view, keping them rail roaded into their original vendettas would make them just as one-note, if not more. Viewers, specially the young target ones, don't want to see Riddler chasing the same man who originally wronged him time and time again.

3) Contacts with the gangs and the underworld of crime in general tends to draw them deeper into crime for the sake of crime and beyond their original motives. It (kinda) happens in real life, too.

4) Their revenge schemes demand for a lot of money, and simply, that money must be got some way.

5) After a while, through Batman's continued interference, they tend to displace their aggression and putting the blame on everything on him (and society in general, sometimes).

Not that all the villains start as focused on a single target and are derailed. The Joker, Penguin, The Ventriloquist and many others are all purpose all around villains from their first appearances.

Explaining it doesn't mean it was a good idea. I could explain why I put salt instead of brown sugar in my last batch of cookies, but brown sugar really would've been a better idea.

Besides that, some of those are too easy:

This is just lazy storytelling, pure and simple. And lazy = dull. I'd rather hear about a Mad Hatter who is trying to come to terms with his feelings and finding creative uses for his genius rather than a Mad Hatter who is just another criminal distinguished only by his motif and gimmick.

Not to mention, this explanation touches off a long stream of wall-bangers that ultimately lead to the conclusion that the whole Batman mythos is pointless because nothing ever gets resolved for good. Which has always been a pain in my craw about superhero mythos.

This one ultimately amounts to trying to pretend a flaw is not a flaw, but to buy that I have to believe that characters like D'Artagnan, Liu Bei, Skeletor, Ryoga Hibiki, Rin-chan etc. are mishandled and that B:TAS' writers had the right idea. I'm sorry, but I can't see how Ryoga would be more interesting if he was no longer in love with Akane or mad at Ranma for causing his curse, and instead was just a guy who showed up every once in awhile to make Ranma's life miserable, or how Liu Bei would be more interesting if he dropped the whole "wanting to preserve/rebuild the Han Empire" thing and was just a guy who started fights because Luo Guanzhong needed a storyline.

Draws on the assumption that anyone who does any illegal activity is arch-criminal material and that there's no difference between "guy who made a bad decision in a tense moment" and "lawyer with repressed anger who was in a traumatic accident." In realistic terms, there's no way the former would end up in exactly the same place as the latter. That takes some pretty deterministic thinking.

Is everyone in it for revenge? Is there only one kind of revenge scheme and they're all really expensive? I've seen crime shows of wives who had hits put on their husbands, and these people didn't need to rob banks to do it.

So every single criminal Batman faces is ultimately going to end up having the same personality, just with different clothing and gimmicks. That's the problem.

edited 7th Mar '11 12:32:08 PM by MoeDantes

... You overthink these things.

I think there was only two episodes where Mad Hatter is OOC, the one in Gotham Knights with Dick's old circus and the one where he uses voodoo dolls or something. "Perchance to Dream" had him totally in character though, what with him breaking down, demanding why Batman didn't just leave him alone even though he gave Bats his greatest dreams.